In the early hours of Nov. 6, Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, vindicating prediction markets that favored Trump on Election Day and continued to surge behind the Republican candidate throughout the night.
By the third hour of election returns, Trump’s chance of victory spiked by 10%-15% across prediction markets. On Kalshi, Trump’s price rose from 58% to 74%. Polymarket saw a rise from 62% to 80%. PredictIt’s price moved from 53 cents to 65 cents.
Nothing substantive changed in those first three hours from 7 ET to 10 ET, but prediction markets were growing even more confident in Trump’s electoral prospects.
Early election returns showed Trump ahead in states that he was largely expected to win. Trump swept the southern states, the Dakotas, and Wyoming before 10 p.m. ET. In the Electoral College, Trump led 178 to Harris’ 99 electoral college votes.
Georgia and North Carolina were too close to call, but Trump led. Harris still appeared to have a chance.
Late night
After the election returns from 11 p.m. ET, Trump strengthened his position, and his initial spike continued. After the 11 ET returns, Trump reached 90% on Kalshi, 94% on Polymarket, and 90 cents on PredictIt.
The election centers around Pennsylvania. Trump led Harris in Pennsylvania by 3% at 11:20 p.m. ET. It was a commanding lead, but there was still about a quarter of the votes left to count. Had the mail-in and absentee ballots leaned more heavily Democratic, then Pennsylvania could have been much closer.
Another all time high for Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/N1c2x6auhC
— Kalshi (@Kalshi) November 6, 2024
It wasn’t the blowout that Democrats hoped for after news about the Selzer poll briefly shook prediction markets the weekend before the election.
More bad news came in for Harris in a closer analysis of New Jersey. With over 90% of the vote recorded, Harris was on track to win the state – and she ultimately did.
However, she won Hudson County, a core Democratic county, by 28%. In 2020, Joe Biden won the county by 46%. Trump’s strong performance portended results that would come out later in the night.
Prediction markets declare victory
The state popular votes and electoral college votes were both expected to be tight. However, Harris didn’t gain the lead in the Blue Wall states that legacy media expected her to. By 1 a.m. ET, it was clear on prediction markets that Trump would win. AP News called the race for Trump at 5:38 a.m. ET.
Trump’s gains among minority voters across several states kept him ahead of Harris. Nationally, Trump had a 10-point lead among Hispanic voters compared to Biden’s 23-point lead in 2020. In Georgia, Harris had 73% support among Black men compared to Biden’s 87% in 2020.
However, the biggest winners of Election Night were prediction markets. Kalshi and Polymarket consistently had Trump ahead, and PredictIt showed a slight edge in Trump’s favor on election night. All prediction markets showed the results of the race hours before legacy media outlets showed similar results.
